Could a blind person see colors if....

i have what is known as "lazy eye".
vision in both eyes is normal but i have no depth perception at all.
my condition is caused by unequal lengths of a pair of muscles that control eye movement.

 

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I suspect that you are telling us that your bi-ocular depth perception is not functioning well. There are several mechanism of depth perception that do not require two eyes. For example the degree to which a near objects occults a more distant object (parallax effect) as you slightly move your head provides good depth perception for those with only one eye. Other mechanism available to them include fact that good focus is depth dependant and what in the literature is called "texture gradient" (For example in a parking lot the more distant cars make smaller retinal images than the closer ones.)

It is quite rare for someone who was blind at birth and later as an adult has vision restored to have bi-ocular based depth perception. This mechanism is based on the fact that in the primary visual cortex, V1, the stimulation for the two eyes are not in good registration, (sort of like the two slightly different images used to make 3D perception in the old stereo-scopes or modern movies where you wear filtering glasses. Polarizing filters are best but usually two "orthogonal" colors, like red and green (or blue and yellow would work).

The degree to which the not quite in registration images must be shifted (mainly in V2, I think) to produce registration is the bases for bi-ocular depth perception. This shifting transformation, like all vision is learned in early childhood. Unfortunately the opportunity for learning this terminates. Adults, who gain sight as adults, cannot recover and use bi-ocular depth mechanism, but they have approximately half a dozen others so they too perceive depth.

The one eyed can drive cars, ride bicycles etc - do all tasks requiring depth perception. If you cannot, the problem is very likely psychological, not organic. It is quite rare now but 100 years ago only uncommon that women became psychologically blind. Freud treated many and cured some. They were not "faking." They were blind, but the fact that Freud could restore some to sight shows the problem was only psychological.

Most of these psychological bind women were intelligent and very stressed by the confining roles the society of circa 1900 allowed them. If you really are as you say unable to perceive depth by any of the half dozen or so means humans, even one eyed ones, have then I bet you are under considerable stress and feel sort of "trapped" by circumstances you cannot control or change. If that is the case removal, or another means to cope, with the stress will probably restore your depth perception.

 

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To MadAnthonyWayne:

The child in the large photo of post 20 seems to be standing on a platform which can sense her shifting weight and probably moves a light or something on the large wall mounted display she is looking at. Also the one holding the horizontal bar (which BTW should have a green section next to the red ones) also seems to be mainly changing the retinal image by shifting her weight.

This is not as good as what I explained. Even the blind have a good understanding /representation of their "near space" (region they can touch). Much better, I am almost sure, would be to use the understanding that the lazy eye child has of its near space (from tactile exploration of it) to help the eye learn to function in the same space. I.e. the devices employed surely help but the eye must learn "from scratch" with them to see. In the three examples I gave the eye only needs to learn to associate the retina data with the ALREADY KNOWN near space. I.e. taking toys from a box, can be done by the blind with their hand alone to construct a near space representation. The lazy eye child, with good eye covered will do the same. Then can learn more quickly to used the optical data stream by correlation or matching to the already know near space representation. No need to create it from scratch - a much more difficult task.

I am pretty sure the tools shown in your photos were developed by trial and error, not with the understanding I am trying to convey to you.

Summary: A better approach is to build on the representation the child already has from their exploration of the near space by use of arm and hand.

One could also experiment with allowing the "good" eye to construct a representation of the 3D world for a few seconds* and then cover it for the child to perform tasks (games) with the lazy eye only but it is not really, "only" as they have already the internal representation to match / correlate with / the retinal data stream of the lazy eye.

*This would best be accomplished by an electronic shutter glasses over the good eye. They exist I think. If not they would be easy to make. For example, the way that the display of a hand held simple calculator works is an electronic shutter. (light falling on it passes thru a polarizer and then thru a film of randomly orientated optically active molecules (twice as it reflects back) but where an electric field is applied These molecules become aligned (not random in orientation) so the plane of polarization is 90 degrees rotated and cannot get out to your eye. I.e. where the electric field is the screen is black. Same trick can be done for "see thru" film between two crossed polarizers - i.e. becomes transparent only when very low voltage (safe) field is applied.

My discussion of how to make the glasses gives me an idea for what may be a fantastic quick cure for lazy eye. Make electronic shutter glasses for BOTH eyes and drive the two 180 degrees out of phase.

Talk about "coaching" the lazy eye as to what it is to see! - This is the ultimate, better than just matching or correlating with what is known from the tactile sense. I bet a variable duty cycle would be great. I.e. mainly give the good eye clear vision initially with duty cycle shifting to give more time for the lazy eye side to be clear.

PS, by edit:
Hollywood has several times made 3D movies, but they are not very good, have color effects, etc. If alternate frames on the film being projected were the right and left camera images AND the audience wore the glasses I just described, the experience would be near perfect 3D.

An IR (not visible) flashing light flooding the auditorium could be sensed by the glasses to keep the clear window side of the glasses in synchronization with the frames of the film. If mass produced, these glasses could cost less than $25 dollars and be vapor sterilized for reuse more than 500 times - I.e. cost no more (~5 cents) per use than the red green ones now used.

Get a grant to test my idea, or pass it along to someone who will. This idea could have very long legs if Hollywood picks it up too.

 

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in tests conducted with machines that were designed to test depth perception by the use of two functioning eyes i failed every single test.
both eyes work, but not together.
somehow i'm able to disregard the information received by the "non functioning" eye, and it can be either one of them. really strange isn't it?

somehow i've managed to use other cues for depth perception.
i've had a few car accidents but none of them was a result of me misjudging distance.

 

I wonder what would happen if such a person started wearing a patch or something over their "active" eye. Would the brain eventually start interfacing with the recently-corrected eye?

 

I think they only tested your bi-ocular depth perception.

I am nearsighted and when younger needed -4.5 diopter to correct the worse eye. I am at the other extreme in bi-occular depth perception. In the one driver's liciense test with a machine I had, I got even the most difficult discriminations the machine could make correct. (You were to tell which of two sign posts was closer and I got all right.)

I think my exceptional bi-occular depth perception may be related to fact I have never allowed people like Madanthonywayne to fit me with correction glasses that are different* despite at times their proper corrections have differed by more than half a diopter. (About half of the perscriptions I have filled, I wrote myself but a good opthomologist should be visited ever few years as they can tell a lot even about your general health by the condition of your retina.) In Brazil, the last few times, I simply have gone to the store and after brief discussion, which lets clerk know I know what I am doing, they will reduce the corrections strength of my existing glasses as I tell them to. (I do not even use a perscription I wrote. It is about -3 or -2.5 now I forget. At my age, I need and have bi-focals.)

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*I easily read fine print without my glasses that most cannot read. When you both wear and do not wear glasses AND the corrections are different, the RELATIVE size of the right & left retinal image changes w/wo glasses. (The absolute size changes as well even if both corrections are the same.)

I think the bringing into registration in V2 is less well performed if there is a relative change in the image size and this would cause your bi-occular depth judgement to be imparied. - That is why I have never worn different corrections, even with slightly different corrections needed. Also, I think one eye with sharper retinal image tends to dominate the other so in some sense I have something functionally better than bi-focals but not as good as properly perscribed tri-focals.